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Commentary

Doug Groothuis writes about a recent anti-ID lecture by Michael Shermer

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Here’s a review of a recent lecture by Michael Shermer by Doug Groothuis.

Excerpt:

Shermer’s basic argument against ID was what he called “the argument from personal incredulity.”

1. X looks designed.
2. I cannot figure out how X could come about through natural causes.
3. Therefore, X was supernaturally designed.

[…]Shermer made many criticisms of creationism and ID (usually not differentiating them), but this argument was the backbone of his critique. It amounts to an endorsement of methodological naturalism: we can only appeal to material explanations in science that preclude any originating design. But Shermer’s argument is faulty for several reasons.

He goes on to explain three reasons why that argument fails.

And then here’s another argument from Shermer:

Shermer’s argument against the design inference is this: The Argument from the Presumption of Naturalism:

1. All scientific arguments must be based on naturalism.
2. ID appeals to causes not allowed by naturalism.
3. Therefore, ID is not scientific.

And another argument. 

Shermer many times said that science (read: naturalism) is given enough time, it will explain what now seems difficult to explain (such as the Big Bang without God) or fine-tuning (without God). I have heard this so often, that I must dub it: The Post-dated check fallacy:

1. We cannot explain X naturalistically.
2. But give us more time and we will explain X naturalistically.
3. Therefore, we do not accept your ID explanation of X.

Are you seeing a pattern? Shermer has presupposed naturalism as a blind faith religion (which he never defends anywhere) and then uses his religion to twist science into supporting his blind faith in naturalism. I don’t mind that he is made happy by religion, but if he cannot support it with public evidence, then why bring it into the lab where the real science is happening? Why not not just keep his religion for the atheist equivalent of church, and leave scientists free to figure out how the world really works?

Click through to read the rest of the post (it’s worth reading).

Related posts

Science’s war on the religion of naturalism

Commentary

Salvo Mag reviews Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny

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Mark Levin’s “Liberty and Tyranny” is my favorite book on the vision of American government.

Here’s a review from Salvo, a Christian magazine.

Excerpt.

In “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto”, Mark Levin identifies and analyzes two divergent, mutually exclusive philosophies of governance. Tracing the threads of each through American history, Levin discusses America’s founding, the Constitution, federalism, the free market, environmentalism, immigration, and the rise of the welfare state and shows how the conservative principles upon which America was founded have fostered opportunity, prosperity, and strength, and have preserved freedom.

Established on belief in divine providence and natural law, conservative principles recognize “a harmony of interests” and “rules of cooperation” that foster “ordered liberty” and a social contract, which brings about what Levin calls the civil society. In the civil society, the individual is recognized as “a unique, spiritual being with a soul and a conscience.” Though civil society recognizes and sanctions a transcendent, objective moral order, which the citizen has a duty to respect, it acknowledges man’s imperfection and anticipates flawed observance.

In stark contrast to the civil society stands modern liberalism, which Levin says would be more accurately described as statism because it effectively abandons faith in divine providence for faith in the supremacy of the state. Consider this distinction concerning the origin of unalienable rights: “The Founders believed, and the Conservative agrees . . . that we, as human beings, have a right to live, live freely, and pursue that which motivates us not because man or some government says so, but because these are God-given natural rights.” But statism replaces the recognition of unalienable rights as rights inherent to an individual because he is a human being created by God, with the perception that it is the state that is the grantor of rights.

Having dismissed divine providence, it follows that statism would abandon natural law as the objective basis for civil law and replace it with relativism, where truth is, in theory, a matter of opinion, but in effect, it becomes whatever those in power say it is. The combined shift works to change the understanding of a right as something inherent to an individual, which the state is obligated to respect, to pseudo-rights or benefits the state bestows (or promises to bestow), usually in return for popular support. Consider the “right” to health care or affordable housing.

Highly recommended read, in case you missed it. Sold well over a million copies.

Commentary

Is moral relativism compatible with Christianity?

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Article from the American Thinker.

Excerpt:

There are many doctrinal differences among the denominations, and good people could debate them ad nauseam and still not settle every one. Yet if anything is central to Christianity, it’s the belief that Truth is spelled with a capital “T” — that it is absolute, universal, and eternal. And also central is a corollary of this belief: that there is an absolute, universal, and eternal answer to every moral question; that right and wrong are not a matter of opinion, and that they don’t change from time to time and place to place (although the perception of them certainly can. Ergo, swords lopping off heads.).

In fact, understand that moral relativism does nothing less than render the foundational act of Christianity, the sacrifice on the cross, incomprehensible. Why? Simply because Jesus died for our sins, and this presupposes that sin exists. However, if what we call morality is simply opinion, then there can be no such thing as sin.

[…]Now we come to why this piece isn’t just for Christians. The concept of Absolute Truth lies at the heart of Judaism, Islam, and, in fact, philosophy itself. Why philosophy? Because, properly defined, philosophy is the search for Truth. Now, some — including many philosophy professors — would dispute this, but they not only are babies in philosophy, but they also have adopted the endeavor of a madman: searching while claiming there is nothing to find.

If there is no Truth and only opinion, then there are no answers to be found. But then why ask questions?

[…]Of course, it’s tempting to embrace religious-equivalency doctrine in a multi-religious society because it’s thought that it enables us to get along. Like two little boys in a schoolyard who each agree to relinquish any claim that his daddy can beat up the other’s, we make the following unwritten pact: “I won’t say my faith is better than yours if you don’t say your faith is better than mine. Deal?” And it does work. Only then there is not only no reason to fight about religion, there is no reason to even discuss it. There is, in fact, no reason to even adopt it. That is, unless it somehow makes you feel good. But adherence to the principle “Do whatever feels good” is a pathway to something. It’s called sin.

Through his embrace of relativism, modern man has made Christianity incomprehensible. He has made philosophy incomprehensible. He has, in fact, made civilization itself incomprehensible. For if there is no right or wrong, then civilization can be no better than barbarism.

Something to think about when you feel pressured to say that morality is relative and truth is relative.